In a conversation that many of our listeners have heard bit and pieces of over the last few episodes, we discuss what it means to us to be our own style of filmmaker.

As artists, we all struggle with the push and pull of being creative and following our instincts, and wanting to sell our art and be successful. These two things are not mutually exclusive, but they certainly feel like they are, a lot of the time. So, we discuss the types of filmmakers we want to be, and talk out the struggle over time that it took to come to these realizations.

There’s not much more to describe for this episode, so listen in and maybe you’ll hear something you were trying to discover in yourself as well. Being a filmmaker is still an art, and your art has to reflect a part of you, or it is simply a product to sell, not a creation to marvel at.

See the premiere of our newest short, I Waited For You, alongside Beneath on Saturday, Oct 6th at the Shawna Shea Film Festival, as part of the Horror Shorts Block. The short film Father of Lies, and feature film Good Day, will also screen at the festival on Thursday, Oct. 4th. Last year our feature film, Theta States, won Best Director and Best Of Fest at Shawna Shea! Tickets are available here: https://filmfreeway.com/TheShawnaSheaFilmFestival/tickets

Subscribe to us on iTunes, Stitcher, YouTube, Google Play, or your favorite podcatching app. And don't forget to rate and review us! Email us at filmmakingsucks@gmail.com with any questions, comments, or subjects you'd like to hear us discuss.

Listen to the HorrorHappens Radio show for current news and interviews from the genre film festivals and conventions you should have on your radar: horrorhappens.com and join his Horror Genre Film Festival Billboard Facebook group!

This week on Filmmaking Sucks, we discuss different ways how you can prepare your film for future marketing, while you are in pre and production.

In the past, we have generally kept much of our production process quiet while in production; hiding fx, hiding sets and locations, etc. Making horror films, we don’t want to give anything much away. Now, moving into a comedy, the spoilers are within the scenes themselves, so making photos on set public help to get people excited in your film.

Starting in pre-preduction at your films title and the script, everything you do makes a difference towards how you promote your film. Decisions made now will affect the audience you are cultivating, and the image they have of your film before they see it.

Be prepared to start taking photos on set, while casting your actors or location scouting, making behind the scenes videos, and showing the world what it is you are doing to make your film. Here we discuss a few of the things you can do to improve your promotions, and get your film seen.

Subscribe to us on iTunes, Stitcher, YouTube, Google Play, or your favorite podcatching app. And don't forget to rate and review us! Email us at filmmakingsucks@gmail.com with any questions, comments, or subjects you'd like to hear us discuss.

Listen to the HorrorHappens Radio show for current news and interviews from the genre film festivals and conventions you should have on your radar: horrorhappens.com and join his Horror Genre Film Festival Billboard Facebook group!

This week, we talk to the host of the Indie Film Hustle Podcast, Alex Ferrari!

Alex has created one of the most well known and helpful resources for indie filmmakers with his podcast and brand of Indie Film Hustle. Having over 20 years of experience in the industry, he has finally begun making his own feature films. Using his podcast and website to bring you along on his journey, he tells his story with a transparency that many do not have in the film business.

After releasing his first low-budget feature, This Is Meg, in 2017 to Hulu, unbeknownst to his listeners, he shot a feature film, guerrilla style, at the Sundance Film Festival called On The Corner Of Ego And Desire.

We discuss his experiences in the industry, his inspirations on why he started IFH, and when he decided it was time to just get up and make his films, his way.

Subscribe to us on iTunes, Stitcher, YouTube, Google Play, or your favorite podcatching app. And don't forget to rate and review us! Email us at filmmakingsucks@gmail.com with any questions, comments, or subjects you'd like to hear us discuss.

Listen to the HorrorHappens Radio show for current news and interviews from the genre film festivals and conventions you should have on your radar: horrorhappens.com and join his Horror Genre Film Festival Billboard Facebook group!

This week on Filmmaking Sucks, we bring to you an interview that Lindsay & Manny did on the JT & Big O Podcast!

This interview was originally aired on Facebook Live in June of this year, and we wanted to make sure all of our listeners had an opportunity to listen to it. We discuss our production methods, along with some of our favorite films, where we think horror is going, and even throw in a little Marvel vs DC geek-debate!

So, we hope you enjoy the show, and we'll be back with a brand new episode next week!

Subscribe to us on iTunes, Stitcher, YouTube, Google Play, or your favorite podcatching app. And don't forget to rate and review us! Email us at filmmakingsucks@gmail.com with any questions, comments, or subjects you'd like to hear us discuss.

Listen to the HorrorHappens Radio show for current news and interviews from the genre film festivals and conventions you should have on your radar: horrorhappens.com and join his Horror Genre Film Festival Billboard Facebook group!

Now that we are officially wrapped and in post-production, this week we discuss the making of Lindsays new short film, Miss Understood Monster!

From Pre to Post, we account the whole process of developing the visuals, writing the script, casting, getting the locations, shooting with a mostly female crew, and prepping for post-production.

Along the way, Lindsay talks about where the idea for the script came from, her inspirations for the characters while writing, and watching it all come to life on set.

Subscribe to us on iTunes, Stitcher, YouTube, Google Play, or your favorite podcatching app. And don't forget to rate and review us! Email us at filmmakingsucks@gmail.com with any questions, comments, or subjects you'd like to hear us discuss.

Listen to the HorrorHappens Radio show for current news and interviews from the genre film festivals and conventions you should have on your radar: horrorhappens.com and join his Horror Genre Film Festival Billboard Facebook group!

We're back! Our first episode in a few months, and we get right down to it. We discuss what they've been up to, all the festivals, the panels, the screenings and shoots we've had.

From the Severed Film Night and Grindhouse at Roxy & Dukes, to Tampa, Florida and Prospect Park, we've had a busy few months, and are happy to be back.

Let us catch you up with all of our goings-on and few of the lessons we learned along the way. Two of the main topics are the shoot with Rogue Chimera Films that Manny was hired to shoot in Florida, and WAVE Productions who premiered a 25 year old film at the Severed Film Night.

WAVE Productions is a mail-order horror/monster movie production company who are known for shooting 2-3 feature films in a single weekend! Wrap your head around that!

Full disclosure, we recorded this episode in early July, and we ended up so deep in pre-production on Miss Understood Monster, that it was never posted. So, a few of the events we discuss, have already passed. But, here it is anyway, and here are links to some of the things we discussed on the episode!

Subscribe to us on iTunes, Stitcher, YouTube, Google Play, or your favorite podcatching app. And don't forget to rate and review us! Email us at filmmakingsucks@gmail.com with any questions, comments, or subjects you'd like to hear us discuss.

Listen to the HorrorHappens Radio show for current news and interviews from the genre film festivals and conventions you should have on your radar: horrorhappens.com and join his Horror Genre Film Festival Billboard Facebook group!

This past weekend, we shot a new short film, and did so with an entirely new crew than we had worked with before. First time working with a pro DP (Philip Kral who you can hear on the Cinematography Panel from Macabre Faire episode) and the 2nd time with a pro sound mixer, Brian Neris.

So, this week we discuss the shoot, how the entire day went, how we handled new the responsibilities and delegations, and what we still have left to do. We talk some of the new parts of the post-production workflow and color grading process.

In the final portion of the show, we give our thoughts on the long-term plans we have for ourselves and the importance of looking at your films as body of work, rather than attempting to pack everything you want into one film.

Subscribe to us on iTunes, Stitcher, YouTube, Google Play, or your favorite podcatching app. And don't forget to rate and review us! Email us at filmmakingsucks@gmail.com with any questions, comments, or subjects you'd like to hear us discuss.

Filmmaking is a completely imperfect art form that takes years and, over those years, the movie tells you what it is. Mistakes happen, accidents happen and true great films are the results of those mistakes and the decisions that those directors make during those moments.

This week, we bring you the Filmmaking On A Budget panel from the Macabre Faire Film Festival, featuring indie directors Patrick Devaney, Jeremiah Kipp, and Jerry Landi.

Whether making films on the budget of a pizza dinner, two days of shooting for 10 months of post production, to working with Hollywood actors, at the end of the day the only thing that matters is finishing the film. Patrick, Jerry and Jeremiah discuss their ups and downs of producing low-budget films over the last decade and more.

Scrubbing race cars out of your sound, ADR, mobile greenscreens, zombies on the beach, creature creation, artistic filmmaking, shorts vs features, making money, losing money, and everything in between. If you have the slightest inclination to make your own films, this panel proves that you CAN do it yourself!

Subscribe to us on iTunes, Stitcher, YouTube, Google Play, or your favorite podcatching app. And don't forget to rate and review us! Email us at filmmakingsucks@gmail.com with any questions, comments, or subjects you'd like to hear us discuss.

Production management software is popping up all over, from the veterans like MovieMagic to newb's like Celtx, it's hard to decide which one is best for your needs. This week, we talk to Jim Miller & Ben Yennie, creators of ProductionNext, which is a Cloud-based all-in-one platform, working to meet all of your production management needs.

Discussing with them the uses of the program, we get deep into how it can help your productions, be they 4-8 member crews with limited budgets like ours, or 100 crews with 6 figure+ budgets. Keep track of your crews inventory, create srotyboards, write and maintain a budget amongst crew members, schedule your shoot days, and keep everyone up-to-speed on the progress of the film from pre-production all the way through post.

Ben Yennie was VP of Sales for Taal, a mobile video interview platform for the hospitality industry. He is the founder of Producer Foundry, a center for workshops, networking, and entrepreneurial training for film and video producers.

Jim Miller brings a deep understanding of user experience, interaction design and development, and Internet communities from a career spent at Apple, HP Labs, Gateway, and, most recently, as an independent design and development consultant.

As always, subscribe to us on iTunes, Stitcher, YouTube, Google Play, or your favorite podcatching app. And don't forget to rate and review us! Email us at filmmakingsucks@gmail.com with any questions, comments, or subjects you'd like to hear us discuss.

Have you ever noticed some people are able to stay organized while getting a massive quantity of work accomplished, while others appear to be busy but never actually produce results? Time management is the key to becoming a successful entrepreneur.

Rejection is probably the toughest part of being an artist. Peers, audiences, film festivals, distributors, everyone has an opinion on your work, and a lot of the time, it's not very positive. But, that comes with the territory and, many times, the way you deal with your rejections defines the path you will take.

This week, we have a very honest discussion on many of the rejections we have received recently, how we have handled them and how we use the lessons we've learned to decide the direction we want to go in next.

As always, subscribe to us on iTunes, Stitcher, YouTube, Google Play, or your favorite podcatching app. And don't forget to rate and review us! Email us at filmmakingsucks@gmail.com with any questions, comments, or subjects you'd like to hear us discuss.

This week, we bring you the Latino Filmmaker panel from the Macabre Faire Film Festival. Hosted by Manny Serrano, and featuring filmmakers Edwin Pagan and Christian Moran, horror super-fan and actress Ines Peek also joined us for the talk. UPDATE: there was a minute or two of overlapping audio on the original upload, it has been fixed, so if you want, you can re-download the fixed audio version.

While much of Hollywood is currently fighting for equality of female and black filmmakers, one of the most marginalized groups in American film today are Latino and Hispanic filmmakers. Making up less than 4% of characters in films in Hollywood, the Hispanic perspective on life is one that is not told very often, and is generally overlooked.

In an eye-opening panel, we discuss the hardships Latinos face growing up in America, and not seeing themselves and their identities portrayed truthfully in American cinema.

Edwin Pagan tells about how he started the website LatinHorror.com and how it has become a central hub for a community that he, and many others, did not the extent to which it existed before the website came to be. Christian Moran talks about his career, from writing faux-sequels to films when he was young and filming them with his siblings, to his new Proxies Of Fear film series which strives to give a platform to Latino and other minority filmmakers in New Jersey.

Bringing in more of a viewers perspective, Ines Peek lends her thoughts on her experiences watching horror films as a child and a teenager, and how it has fueled her love for the genre and film festivals today. She also describes how the lack of representation in films may bottle-necked the opportunities for her to follow her aspirations of becoming an actress, via the lack of roles available to audition for, to very minimal support from friends and family telling her that it was possible.

As always, subscribe to us on iTunes, Stitcher, YouTube, Google Play, or your favorite podcatching app. And don't forget to rate and review us! Email us at filmmakingsucks@gmail.com with any questions, comments, or subjects you'd like to hear us discuss.

I became an actor to change the way I grew up. The way I grew up, I never saw myself on screen. I would look at the screen and think, ‘Well, there’s no way I can do it, because I’m not there.’ And it’s like as soon as you follow your dreams, you give other people the allowance to follow theirs. And for me, to look on younger girls and to say, ‘Well, Gina’s like me, maybe not necessarily the same skin color, maybe not necessarily the same background, but like that’s me. I’m not alone. I can do it too.’ 

Happy Valentines Day everyone! We all know that just because it's a holiday (sort of) that doesn't mean the hustle ends, so here we are with some updates! At the beginning of the year, we set some 6-week goals for ourselves, and today is our progress report! Meager they may have been, the tasks of writing a script and scheduling a shoot (respectively) came with their own woes, and we're gonna confess them to you.

Over the last six weeks, we've had two major hurdles. One being compatible screenwriting software, and how do you prep for a shoot when you've never seen the location? So, we talk about the obstacles we've been dealing with lately, and then decide on what our next 6-week goal will be, and brush on what we want to do in the long term as filmmakers, and the next few months for the podcast.

We also briefly discuss LUTs in this episode a bit, and we talk about in-camera LUTs, which was just used as a comparison to the in-camera color profiles. Camera profiles are not LUTs, but they are a similar concept. For a more in-depth explanation of what a LUT is, check out this article at NoFilmSchool: https://nofilmschool.com/2011/05/what-is-a-look-up-table-lut-anyway

As always, subscribe to us on iTunes, Stitcher, YouTube, Google Play, or your favorite podcatching app. And don't forget to rate and review us! Email us at filmmakingsucks@gmail.com with any questions, comments, or subjects you'd like to hear us discuss.

Covering feature filmmaking, first projects, the unbalanced amount of male directors vs female directors, female-centric tropes in horror films, female killers in films, along with many other topics.

Be a part of Women In Horror Month by using the hashtags #WiHM9 #WiHM #WomenInHorror and #WiH!

As always, subscribe to us on iTunes, Stitcher, YouTube, Google Play, or your favorite podcatching app. And don't forget to rate and review us! Email us at filmmakingsucks@gmail.com with any questions, comments, or subjects you'd like to hear us discuss.You can also now follow us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/filmmakingpodcast!#FilmmakingSucks

photo by Gail Wisun-Gooch

Photo by Robert M. Jackson.

I don’t go up to another film director and say, Boy, you are a great male film director.’ So what’s curious to me is why it’s so gender specific with me. I get a lot of questions about ‘How could you make a film with this kind of subject matter?’ How could you do this as a woman and a mother?’ My answer: women can be terrible! Have you ever been to high school? Girls have as much love in them as they have viciousness because they’re human beings. Violence and horror films are not gender specific.

Producing a low-budget feature can easily be one of the most daunting undertakings you will ever experience, but also the most rewarding. The crash-course in filmmaking you receive will be unlike any other. This week on the show we talk with Writer/Producer/Director Joe Badon about his upcoming feature film "The God Inside My Ear."

With a budget of $8000, and not a penny more, Joe wrote his script, assembled a cast & crew, and over the course of a few weeks, shot his first feature film. Starting out with how he got into filmmaking and working as a storyboard artist, into where he found his actors, his crew, locations, and finally onto how in the hell he managed to keep the budget so damn low!

You can find Joe Badon on Facebook, and find the film here: https://www.facebook.com/thegodinsidemyear/ where you can watch the trailer and follow its progress. God Inside My Ear will be hitting festivals this year, so look out for it!

As always, subscribe to us on iTunes, Stitcher, YouTube, Google Play, or your favorite podcatching app. And don't forget to rate and review us! Email us at filmmakingsucks@gmail.com with any questions, comments, or subjects you'd like to hear us discuss.You can also now follow us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/filmmakingpodcast!#FilmmakingSucks

“When I meet with recent film school graduates, I remind them that whatever happens next in the industry won’t be something my generation does. It will happen among the 20-somethings, the narrative entrepreneurs who figure out how to make the next great thing. Rather than seeking permission to work in the existing industry, they’ll make their own.”

Filmmaking is a visual medium, obviously. So it goes without saying that choosing the right cinematographer is essential in telling your story properly.

At the Macabre Faire Film Festival, Manny was lucky enough to have hosted multiple panels, one of which was The Art Of Cinematography, with two extremely talented D.P's in Phil Kral and Jill Poisson. Discussing a range of topics starting with how they became cinematographers to defining a "film look," working with multiple directors, and how to create a visual style over the span of a career.

Subscribe to us on iTunes, Stitcher, YouTube, Google Play, or your favorite podcatching app. And don't forget to rate and review us! Email us at filmmakingsucks@gmail.com with any questions, comments, or subjects you'd like to hear us discuss.You can also now follow us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/filmmakingpodcast!#FilmmakingSucks

I like movies where you can come back and re-watch them and admire the cinematography 25 years later. 

At the Ax Wound film Festival, Lindsay sat in on a live Podcast recording for 4Mile Circus, who are not only an awesome podcast you should all check out, but they are also a production team based out of Brooklyn, NY!

On this panel, hosted by Nicole Solomon and Sean Mannion, Lindsay, Monika Estrella Negra and Christina Raia discuss how to use ancillary content to promote your film, be it through podcasts, behind the scenes interviews, on-set tutorials of how you accomplished certain scenes, or just by simply using social media as often as possible while on set.

Listen in and let us know what you think, and subscribe to the 4Mile Circus Podcast at 4milecircus.com, which we were guests on last week! Big thanks to Nicole and Sean for letting us include this on our feed!

Subscribe to us on iTunes, Stitcher, YouTube, Google Play, or your favorite podcatching app. And don't forget to rate and review us! Email us at filmmakingsucks@gmail.com with any questions, comments, or subjects you'd like to hear us discuss.You can also now follow us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/filmmakingpodcast!#FilmmakingSucks

Social Media! That ever elusive combination lock that we all struggle to get right. How to get followers, how to get shares, how to get likes, how to get people to pay attention to you and your film! Well, this week, we sit down with Sean Mannion and Nicole Solomon at 4MileCircus and discuss exactly that.

4MileCircus is a media company who offer their services in video production, social media management, teaching workshops, training seminars and more, all to help you create better content. They share a few of their methods on how to create a social media following for your first film.

Don't forget to listen to the 4MileCircus podcast for this week as well, which feature Manny and Lindsay discussing making their first film, and a few other choice subjects which harp on why, sometimes, Filmmaking Sucks.

And a huge thanks to Sean and Nicole for usage of their equipment for this episode! Check them out at 4milecircus.com and see how they can help you make good films!

Subscribe to us on iTunes, Stitcher, YouTube, Google Play, or your favorite podcatching app. And don't forget to rate and review us! Email us at filmmakingsucks@gmail.com with any questions, comments, or subjects you'd like to hear us discuss.You can also now follow us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/filmmakingpodcast!#FilmmakingSucks

The first rule of social media is that everything changes all the time. What won’t change is the community’s desire to network.

Happy New Year everyone! Today marks the one-year anniversary of the first episode of Filmmaking Sucks AND the first episode of the new year, so we decided to do a bit of a year end wrap-up.

A huge part of this struggle is keeping yourself motivated in the face of so much rejection and, plain and simple, a lack of time. Between working to pay the bills, and shooting your films on weekends, how do you find the time to actually promote yourself at events? You lose sleep, you lose a social life and essentially free time as a whole. The road to getting noticed is definitely a long-game. It takes 20 years to become an overnight success, so you have to plan to put the time in, and try to not focus on doing too much at once.

This week we will talk about some of our personal goals and how we budget some of our time in order to always keep ourselves working towards our long-term goals.

You can catch us next weekend, Jan 12th-14th at the Macabre Faire Film Festival, where Lindsays film "Beneath" will be screening on Saturday and Sunday. Lindsay will also be part of the Women In Horror Panel, and Manny will be hosting the Cinematography Panel, featuring Jill Poisson and Phil Kral. Go to MacabreFaireFilmFest.com to buy tickets!

Subscribe to us on iTunes, Stitcher, YouTube, Google Play, or your favorite podcatching app. And don't forget to rate and review us! Email us at filmmakingsucks@gmail.com with any questions, comments, or subjects you'd like to hear us discuss.You can also now follow us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/filmmakingpodcast!#FilmmakingSucks

I hope that in this year to come, you make mistakes. Because if you are making mistakes, then you are making new things, trying new things, learning, living, pushing yourself, changing yourself, changing your world. You’re doing things you’ve never done before, and more importantly, you’re doing something.

The panel discusses what it's like to be a woman working in media, and especially the horror industry. Their thoughts on the Ax Wound Film Festival and other female-centric festivals, as well as working with practical effects, the importance of being subversive towards the mainstream, and guerrilla filmmaking.

You can check out the Ax Wound Film Festival at the Women In Horror Month Website. Submissions for the 2018 fest open in a few months. Whether you are accepted or not, whether you are a male or female filmmaker, we advise you all to strongly consider making the trip out to Vermont to be part of the festival.

Subscribe to us on iTunes, Stitcher, YouTube, Google Play, or your favorite podcatching app. And don't forget to rate and review us! Email us at filmmakingsucks@gmail.com with any questions, comments, or subjects you'd like to hear us discuss.You can also now follow us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/filmmakingpodcast!#FilmmakingSucks

I don’t go up to another film director and say, Boy, you are a great male film director.’ So what’s curious to me is why it’s so gender specific with me. I get a lot of questions about ‘How could you make a film with this kind of subject matter?’ How could you do this as a woman and a mother?’ My answer: women can be terrible! Have you ever been to high school? Girls have as much love in them as they have viciousness because they’re human beings. Violence and horror films are not gender specific.

The panel discussed the past and future of horror, the importance of diversity in front of and behind the camera, the use of CGI in horror, indie filmmaking, budgets and so much more.

Listen to HorrorHappens Radio hosted by Jay Kay every Tuesday afternoon at 4pm on HGRNJ.org and check out his future guests, as well as archived conversations and interviews at www.horrorhappens.com

Subscribe to us on iTunes, Stitcher, YouTube, Google Play, or your favorite podcatching app. And don't forget to rate and review us! Email us at filmmakingsucks@gmail.com with any questions, comments, or subjects you'd like to hear us discuss.You can also now follow us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/filmmakingpodcast!#FilmmakingSucks